IRIS Photos

In Ithaca It Was 20 Degrees, but on the Arabian Peninsula, the Thermometer Registered 94.

Sarah E.Thomas

On Sunday, March 6, I began a four-day visit to the Weill Cornell Medical College and its library in Education City, located near Doha, Qatar. Sunday is a workday in this country situated on the west coast of the Arabian Gulf. Education City is a sweeping undertaking of the leadership of Qatar, the Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani and his wife, Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, in which several western universities such as Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgetown, Texas A & M, and Virginia Commonwealth University have pioneered to establish educational facilities in business, medicine, design, diplomacy, and other subjects on the 2,500-acre campus.

The Weill Cornell Medical College operates a six-year program in which students receive preprofessional training, and when the first class graduates in 2008, a Cornell University medical degree. There are about 120 students and 30 faculty members in residence at this time. Dean Daniel Alonso’s vision for the library was a fully distributed electronic library, and, headed by Jane Lindley, it accomplishes this goal through the licensing of essential electronic resources as well as a suite of virtual services. The library has a small reading room and also makes its resources available at “pods” equipped with computers that are found throughout WCMC-Q’s spacious building.

Each of the universities that are part of Education City has a library, and there are several different ways in which they provide service to their communities. WCMC-Q has seventeen staff members, including the director, associate director, head of information services, six reference librarians, and a systems operation. Other schools, such as Carnegie Mellon University, have a bare-bones staff and depend on their home university to acquire or license resources or to provide system support. There is now a committee that is planning a central university library. One of its challenges is to define the relationship between the central library and its branches, all of whom have relationships as branches of other universities. Should they combine their resources and acquire materials together, sharing a common system? Should they maintain their existing close relationships with their U.S. university libraries? Should WCMC-Q Library become Cornell’s twenty-first library? Over the next few months we’ll be making recommendations on how we can work together more effectively. Certainly, the Qatar branch is an illustration of the transnational university at work.

Those of you who, like me, struggle with the pronunciation of Qatar, will benefit from the tutoring of a Cornell specialist. “ There are no direct English equivalents of the ‘q’ and ‘t’ sounds in the word ‘Qatar.’ Shawkat Toorawa, assistant professor of Arabic literature at Cornell, advises, "Pronounce the word ‘cutter’ and fully enunciate the ‘t’s—not the ‘t’ in ‘tat,’ but the ‘t’ in ‘tall.’ Qataris, Bahrainis, and inhabitants of some other Gulf states pronounce the initial sound not as ‘q’ or ‘k,’ but as ‘g,’ pronouncing the name of the country ‘gutter,’" Toorawa said.

“Pronouncing the vowels in ‘Qatar’ can be equally challenging. Susanna Seltzer, outreach officer for the Embassy of Qatar in Washington, noted: ‘There should really not be any vowel space between the ‘t’ and the ‘r’ sound. 'Gu-tr' might be a good guide to pronunciation for the novice, if you can roll the 'r.'"—Sam Spies.

From left: Sarah Thomas; Havva S. Idriss, Vice Dean, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar; and Jane Lindley